


Perchance to Dream

by parasolevi



Category: Shingeki no Kyojin | Attack on Titan
Genre: A fuckton of angst, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Alternate Universe - Reincarnation, Bertholdt has bad dreams, M/M, couldn't think of a decent title so right now it's a line from a Hamlet soliloquy sorry, more characters and relationships will be added later when they show up, slow burn Reibert, that are really memories
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-06-29
Updated: 2014-06-29
Packaged: 2018-02-06 19:01:54
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,068
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1868922
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/parasolevi/pseuds/parasolevi
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The dreams are memories and more often than not, Bertholdt wakes up crying.<br/>A sort-of reincarnation AU.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Perchance to Dream

**Author's Note:**

> I wrote this because I am a piece of shit who wants all of my babies to be happy but is not content to let them do so and thus comes up with shitty angsty headcanons for them. Excuse me as I go hide in shame.  
> 

It’s dark and Bertholdt is being jostled around, bumping against hard walls all around him. He can hear the sound of titans’ footsteps and the pounding of horses’ hooves against the ground, tenses as yelling voices- familiar voices- draw nearer to his confinement. There’s a shift the walls around him and with the sunlight outside he can see the faces of a few of his comrades through the miniscule cracks. 

Except they’re not friends and fellow trainees anymore. They’re all seasoned soldiers and he is now the enemy. He’s the one responsible for the deaths of their loved ones. They don’t know that that was not what he’d wanted. They shout and accuse and Bertholdt can’t stop his eyes from leaking tears. 

“Who do you think wants to kill people?!” he hears himself scream and his voice cracks on the second to last word. He’s sweating more than ever and he wants nothing more than to go back to easy companionship with the others. But he can’t turn back the clock any more than he can deny the blood running fever-hot through his veins and he doesn’t want to kill them, has never wanted to kill, but he’ll have no choice if they try to hurt Reiner. 

Reiner, whose hands are enclosing him now to keep him out of harm’s way. Reiner, the only one he has left who isn’t even always there but in this shitty life Bertholdt will take what he can get. Bertholdt’s only ever been a scared little boy, but he’ll do his best to protect Reiner. 

He hears Armin taunting, telling him that Annie is being tortured. Maybe Annie deserves it- she killed people directly, after all- but then again Bertholdt knows he deserves it even more than she. The blood of all the innocents within Wall Maria is on his hands, though his hands were not the ones that ended their lives. The thought of Annie suffering in his rightful place twists in his gut and the guilt and rage towards himself bubble up and force words out of him. He feels like he is choking but he roars “I’ll kill you all!” and tastes the salt of his own tears that have run down his face. 

Bertholdt jolts awake in a cold sweat with hot tears spilling out of his eyes and down his temples. The pillow is soaked; he must have been crying for some time before he woke up. Bertholdt sits up and looks at the clock. Not even a quarter past two. 

Feeling the dry ache in the back of his throat as if he’s been screaming for hours, he goes to the kitchen and gulps down two glasses of water before slumping into one of the kitchen chairs. 

The nightmares come almost every night, and Bertholdt can’t seem to find a way to stop them. They’re never that bad in the beginning, just typical nightmare things. Yelling, darkness, fear and confusion. 

What Bertholdt can’t stand is when they transition to where he knows it’s not dream, but memory. Hearing the pain and fury in his friends’ voices and knowing he caused that. Knowing that he is the monster they hunt, that they aim to kill. Loathing himself for deserving it. 

Nights ago he dreamed of being a young boy again, being trained with Reiner and Annie to do what they had to do to end humanity and save their own kind. Dreamed of biting open his hand and squeezing his eyes shut tight as if that could stop the dizzying feeling of ascending sixty meters up within mere seconds. He could almost feel the wall turning to rubble underfoot. Felt, like tonight, Reiner’s armored hand enclose him as they hurtled through Shiganshina District and broke Wall Maria. The exact number of deaths Bertholdt couldn’t remember, it’d been too long ago now, but he knew it was high. The casualties had been much greater than he’d expected, and he’d cried and felt sick about it for weeks before Annie told him to get himself together. 

Dwelling on the dreams causes his stomach to roll violently, and Bertholdt barely makes it to the bathroom before he’s emptying its contents into the toilet bowl. Dry heaving and silently sobbing again, he hangs his head over the toilet for a few moments more until it passes. 

He stands up and flushes away his sick, then scoops water from the tap into his mouth to rinse out the taste of bile and splashes the cold water onto his face. With the hem of his shirt, Bertholdt wipes away the wet droplets still clinging to his skin and looks up to stare at himself in the mirror- something he only does on these early mornings. He doesn’t look like a monster, looks instead like a boy hunched over the sink with red eyes and messy hair. But he feels like a monster, and knows he was one. Even though he can no longer become sixty meters tall, he still feels that past like a looming shadow ready to kick through his carefully constructed walls and destroy everything. 

Forcing the image of the colossal titan out of his head, Bertholdt flips the light off and walks slowly to the room next to his own. Keeping his steps soft, he slips inside and climbs into bed next to his best friend. If Reiner wonders why Bertholdt always winds up sleeping with him, he has not voiced it. Bertholdt is grateful for his friend’s easy acceptance, however much longer it will last before explanations are due. Reiner has never been among the most patient of people. But for now, Bertholdt is left to his thoughts by himself. 

He curls himself into Reiner’s side and stews in self-loathing until his exhaustion overtakes him again. The dreams won’t come again tonight. In the morning the guilt will have mostly subsided and Bertholdt can go about avoiding the past life and trying to live this one as best as he can. But no matter what, when he ends the day the memories will come back and he has no way of stopping that. 

It must be nice to have a choice but Bertholdt has never had one. Not in this life, not in the last. The only thing he’s ever had is Reiner, and he just has to hope that eventually Reiner will remember their history like he does.

**Author's Note:**

> Shitty short intro-y part out of the way, so next chapter we can start getting into the story and you can all start hating me like I hate myself for this. (Unless you do already in which case you're ahead of the game and I'm proud of you.)
> 
> Find me on [tumblr](http://parasolevi.tumblr.com/)


End file.
